Teaching & Learning

Harvard Law School has partnered with NYU School of Law and the Advantage Testing Foundation to launch the Training and Recruitment Initiative for Admission to Leading Law Schools (TRIALS), a five-week summer residential program aimed at helping underrepresented students of modest means get into the nation’s top law schools.

A panel of judges of the Army Court of Criminal Appeals came to Harvard Law School February 5th to hear arguments in a drug trafficking case charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein ’78 is highlighted in the Jan. 5, 2009, issue of Newsweek magazine as one of four thinkers “whose philosophies seem to have captured the intellectual moment.”

For Harvard Law School, 2008 was a record-setting year. The faculty grew to an all-time high, and the five-year fundraising campaign set the standard for law schools everywhere. As 2008 draws to a close, here are some highlights — including a slideshow — of a very busy law year in the life of HLS, from A(lstott) to Z(ittrain)...

This fall, the classrooms and lecture halls of Harvard Law School no longer reverberated with the voices of two of the institution’s best-known teachers—Professors Arthur R. Miller ’58 and Paul C. Weiler LL.M. ’65. Miller ended his 36-year HLS career last year, and Weiler retired after 26 years of teaching at the school.

Brazilian Supreme Federal Court President Gilmar Ferreira Mendes discussed the development of Brazilian constitutional law since 1988 on Monday, October 27 in Pound Hall.

On October 23, 2008 HLS hosted a panel discussion titled Corporate Leadership in a Time of Turmoil. Moderated by Professor Bob Clark '72, the discussion featured panelists Domenico De Sole LL.M. '72, chairman of the Tom Ford fashion label and former chairman and CEO of the Gucci Group; Frank Dengeard LL.M. '85, former chairman and CEO of Thomson SA; and Bruce Wasserstein JD/MBA '71, chief executive of Lazard LLC.

Just hours after embattled South African President Thabo Mbeki announced that he would resign on Sept. 21 students in a Harvard Law School classroom are absorbing the reverberations from a hemisphere away.

Staff and students from the WilmerHale Legal Services Center’s Health Law Clinic attended this year’s United States Conference on AIDS last month, where they introduced and described their new program to educate the public about the current state of health care law.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude—the artists whose notable projects include “The Gates” in New York City’s Central Park—received the Great Negotiator Award from HLS’s Program on Negotiation.

Four days before the first 2008 presidential debate takes place in Mississippi, a panel discussion at HLS looked at past, present and future presidential debates.

HLS continues to expand its international focus—and its graduates are taking notice.

At Harvard Law School, some new answers to the question, What do future lawyers need to know?

The visionaries who supported these programs can already see results Established by HLS Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. ’78 in 2005, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute…

Having Harry “Terry” Martin at the helm of the Harvard Law Library was a comfort and an inspiration not only for me, when I was director of the Boston College Law Library, but also for the other law library directors in New England and in the profession generally.

Beginning as a student over a half century ago—and with the notable exception of successive clerkships for Justice Roger Traynor of the Supreme Court of California and Justice Felix Frankfurter—Professor Mansfield’s journey in law has taken place entirely at the Harvard Law School, as he is fond of calling it. Impressive as such longevity is, he has left a mark on Harvard—and on my life as well—that is even deeper than it is wide.

Daryl Levinson, the Fessenden Professor of Law, joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 2005. He teaches and writes primarily about constitutional law and theory. He has been tasked by Dean Elena Kagan ’86 with helping students and alumni who want to become law professors. In the latest issue of Harvard Law Today, he answered some questions about how students -- and alumni -- can become legal academics.

Jim Greiner, an HLS assistant professor of law, created a unique course as a joint endeavor between HLS and the Harvard statistics department, where Greiner, who holds a Ph.D. in statistics, is an affiliate. The 13 law students will be taking and defending two depositions each, one involving a political redistricting hypothetical and the other involving an employment discrimination case.

John H. Mansfield ’56 retires after instilling a “desire to respond” in generations of Harvard Law students By James A. Sonne ’97 John Mansfield has…